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100 INFLUENTIAL PAPERS – LONGER COMMENTARY
42
Cornelissen, J. H. C. (1996)
An experimental comparison of leaf decomposition rates in a wide range of temperate plant species and
types. Journal of Ecology, 84, 573-582.
There has been a long-standing interest by ecosystem and soil ecologists in understanding the factors that
influence litter decomposition rates. Historically this work recognized the importance of three interacting drivers:
the chemical or physical properties of the litter itself (i.e., ‘litter quality’), the decomposer organisms, and the
abiotic environment, notably climate. However, much of the historical work on this topic has been conducted
without much consideration of the ecology of the plants actually producing the litter, or how differences in
ecological attributes among plant species may drive differences in the decomposability of their litters. This is due
to a disconnection between those working on the ecology of plants and those studying the decomposer
subsystem at that time. More generally, although a small minority of ecologists has historically recognized that
plant species exhibit important differences in their effects on the decomposer subsystem (e.g., Handley 1961),
this topic has only attracted widespread attention over the past 20 years.
The study by Cornelissen (1996) broke new ground, through being the first major study to link acrossspecies variation in litter decomposability to the ecological attributes of these species. This work was conceptually
based on the comparative approach to plant ecology which was rapidly gaining traction at that time (e.g., Grime,
Hunt & Hodgson 1988). Specifically, it involved placing leaf litters of 125 highly contrasting British plant species
including trees, shrubs, grasses and forbs in a common soil environment or ‘litter bed’ (see photo by Hans
Cornelissen below) and measuring their mass loss through decomposition over time. It showed that variability
among species in litter decomposability could be explained in part by several ecological and taxonomic
characteristics. These included plant life form, deciduous versus evergreen habit, leaf colour at litter-fall,
taxonomic status, and Sporne’s index of evolutionary advancement. As such, this work provided compelling
evidence that key aspects of a plant’s ecology could have considerable predictive power for determining litter
decomposition rates. It also highlighted that key plant traits that underpin ecological differences among species
may have important afterlife effects in driving interspecific variation in the decomposition of their litter, and
ultimately carbon and nutrient cycling processes known to be driven by decomposition.
This work, as well as the ‘litter bed’ approach for simultaneously measuring the decomposition rates of
multiple species, has underpinned considerable subsequent activity aimed at understanding the comparative
ecology of plant litter decomposition. As such, there has been much activity in determining the importance of
plant traits in driving plant litter decomposition, including those traits that underpin the ‘leaf economics
spectrum’ (Santiago 2007). A combined analysis of several studies around the world utilizing this approach
revealed that small-scale variation in plant traits may be more important than macroclimate in directly influencing
litter decomposability (Cornwell et al. 2008). Further, the so-called ‘meeting of litter’ experiment that used litters
from a range of global change experiments in common litter beds was able to unravel the mechanisms through
which global change may affect decomposition (Cornelissen et al. 2007). Other studies have used this type of
approach to explore whether decomposability of different plant tissue types (e.g., leaves, stems and roots) are
coordinated across species (Freschet et al. 2012), and whether there is coordination among species of
decomposability of litter and palatability of foliage (Wardle et al. 2002). As such, the approach to studying
decomposition instigated by Cornelissen (1996) has firmly established variation among plant species, and the
traits that drive this variation, as a fundamental driver of litter decomposability and therefore potentially the
cycling of carbon and nutrients in the decomposer subsystem.
David Wardle
Cornelissen, J. H. C. et al. (2007) Global negative feedback to climate warming responses of leaf litter
decomposition rates in cold biomes. Ecology Letters, 10, 619-627.
Cornwell, W. K. et al. (2008) Plant species traits are the predominant control on litter decomposition rates within
biomes worldwide. Ecology Letters, 11, 1065-1071.
Freschet, G. T., Aerts, R. & Cornelissen, J. H. C. (2012) A plant economics spectrum of litter decomposability.
Functional Ecology, 26, 56-65.
Grime, J. P., Hodgson, J. G & Hunt, R. (1988) Comparative Plant Ecology: a Functional Approach to Common British
Species. Unwin Hyman, London.
Handley, W. R. C. (1961) Further evidence for the importance of residual leaf protein complexes in litter
decomposition and the supply of nitrogen for plants. Plant and Soil, 15, 37-73.
Santiago, L. (2007) Extending the leaf economics spectrum to decomposition: evidence from a tropical forest.
Ecology, 88, 1126-1131.
Wardle, D. A., Bonner, K. I. & Barker, G. M. (2002) Linkages between plant litter decomposition, litter quality, and
vegetation responses to herbivores. Functional Ecology, 16, 585-595.